Manga

[SenshiNaka]

I just started reading the manga today and im about half way throught the first volume and i must say it is awsome. The art is truely amazing and the story is somewhat different than that of the anime so far. Nothing truely drastic has changed, just little minor details that dont actually affect the story. I think anyone that is a fan of the anime should look into the manga because it is pretty damn good so far. Has anyone else here read the manga and if so how far are you into it and what do you think?

[TeldakSS]

I liked it a lot as well. Unfortunately, Dark Horse is a load of junk when it comes to making a decent release schedule for Hellsing. I know for a fact at least five are out in Japanese and yet for the last several months, we only have one in English. And yes, there are Nazis later on. I have no clue what purpose they serve, but it looks more or less like a Nazi battallion was brought back from WWII and not told that Germany lost WWII.

[Devil Cactus]

How is it a crappy release schedule? We get a new volume around every two months, and in Japan they get two volumes a year. We sure have it bad, yeah.

[smeghead]

How is it a crappy release schedule? We get a new volume around every two months, and in Japan they get two volumes a year. We sure have it bad, yeah.

It's not like it's being redrawn though, translating & editing it shouldn't take anywhere near as long as creating it to start with.

[Devil Cactus]

You could say the same thing about all of Tokyopop's releases, but they still do them every two months. It's just the standard. Besides, if memory serves me correctly, editing is also pretty time consuming, as is printing.

[QuickSilver]

How many volumes are there supposed to be?

[Devil Cactus]

Who knows? Apparently, Kohta Hirano is an extremely lazy and unreliable artist, so new chapters come out on an irregular basis.

[TeldakSS]

There're a minimum of six out in Japanese now. As far as I know, there are still only two translated. They're both excellent and I think Dark Horse would have done well to get their asses in gear earlier.

When I went in to buy Hellsing 2 at the Waldenbooks, it was right after van Helsing had started being really pushed. The cashier said they were selling Hellsing manga like hotcakes now because of that; thankfully for me Hellsing 2 had just come out. Oh yeah, number two lets on heavily about the dealings with the Nazis.

Okay, so we know there are a base of six tankouban out in Japan. We have three translated and released on the market as of two weeks ago (according to Dark Horse' release list (http://www.darkhorse.com/books/title.php). Here's the release schedule as yet:
Hellsing Volume 1 TPB - 12-03-03
Hellsing Volume 2 TPB - 04-07-04
Hellsing Volume 3 TPB - 06-16-04
Hellsing Volume 4 TPB - 09-22-04 (unreleased as of yet)

So, it will have taken them probably a year to translate four tankouban. I know they're not standard sized tankouban, they're a bit bigger than normal. I suppose with a schedule like that, we'll end up with the eighth tankouban being translated relatively soon after it is released. Unless the contract requires them to wait x months after the release of a tankouban in Japanese to publish it in English, I really don't see a point in essentially sitting on the property. If they had had number two out earlier, it likely would've flown off the shelves along with number one. It doesn't make business sense to have held off like that, at least not to me.

[Devil Cactus]

Although you have a point about business strategy and the like, I think Dark Horse is trying to avoid getting ahead of Kohta Hirano, as if they began to publish them quickly, it would then be like- 6 to 8 months between each volume. And nobody wants that. Except weird people. Nobody understands them.

[pmurph]

yep i read the first volume yesterday(in 1 hour honestly)mangas are just a bit too short sometimes,i like it all exept for the exaggerated slang(especially andersongs scottish accent)i should know , i live in scotland.